PatientsLikeMe Launches “24 Days of Giving” to Encourage Sharing of
Health Data for Good

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--On December 2, PatientsLikeMe will
launch a new campaign that will extend through the month and ask people
to rethink their giving this year. PatientsLikeMe is calling on patients
who are living with a chronic condition to donate their health data
after donating to their favorite non-profit on Giving Tuesday.

“When I donate my data to an organization that can aggregate it
and see a pattern or meaning, I’m not just helping myself, I’m helping
all of the other people who are living with cancer, and their doctors.”

The December campaign, officially branded “24 Days of Giving,” asks
patients to simply share their health data for good. To do so, they can
create a profile on PatientsLikeMe and start tracking their symptoms,
treatments and quality of life. By sharing this data on the site,
patients not only help themselves, but help others who can learn from
their experiences, and advance research. “Our members have learned how
to live better day-to-day and have contributed significantly to medical
research,” said Michael Evers, PatientsLikeMe’s Executive Vice President
of Marketing and Patient Advocacy. “We hope more will consider sharing
their health data for their own, and the greater, good.”

At PatientsLikeMe, health data includes information about a disease or
condition—how people live with it, what their doctors are doing to treat
it, and what it’s like to navigate their health journey. The data are
de-identified and shared with partners to help bring the patient voice
to medical research, develop better clinical trials, and create new
products and services that are more in tune with what patients
experience and need.

Garth Callaghan, kidney cancer fighter and author of Napkin
Notes, understands the importance of data for good in furthering
clinical research and is an
active PatientsLikeMe member. Garth has been diagnosed with cancer
four times and may not live long enough to watch his daughter Emma
graduate from high school. Rather than dwell on his diagnosis, Garth
takes each day as a gift and a chance to connect with those he loves. He
has fulfilled a promise he made to write 826 napkin notes so that Emma
will have one for every day until she graduates high school. Garth uses
PatientsLikeMe to share his data in the hope that others living with
cancer can learn from his experience and help fight their own battles
better.

“I keep my promise to Emma by sharing wisdom through my napkin notes,
and I share my cancer stories online through PatientsLikeMe,” said
Garth. “When I donate my data to an organization that can aggregate it
and see a pattern or meaning, I’m not just helping myself, I’m helping
all of the other people who are living with cancer, and their doctors.”

The “24 Days of Giving” campaign will be active across PatientsLikeMe’s Twitter
and Facebook
social media channels through December (#24DaysofGiving). Anyone can
join PatientsLikeMe and share their experiences to help others while
helping themselves. To learn more, go to www.patientslikeme.com.

About PatientsLikeMe

PatientsLikeMe® is a patient network that improves lives and
a real-time research platform that advances medicine. Through the
network, patients connect with others who have the same disease or
condition and track and share their own experiences. In the process,
they generate data about the real-world nature of disease that help
researchers, pharmaceutical companies, regulators, providers, and
nonprofits develop more effective products, services and care. With more
than 300,000 members, PatientsLikeMe is a trusted source for real-world
disease information and a clinically robust resource that has published
more than 50 peer-reviewed research studies. Visit us at www.patientslikeme.com
or follow us via our blog,
Twitter
or Facebook.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--In a new PatientsLikeMe poll of people living with chronic conditions in all 50 states, 2,755 patients shared their priorities for a nationwide health... more »